69 Fun Facts About Tea

Tea is brewed from the leaves of which plant species?

Camellia sinensis is the one; the others are yerba mate, coffee and rooibos, none of which is technically tea.

After plain drinking water, which is the most widely consumed beverage in the world?

Global production reached 29.8 million tonnes in 2022, nearly half of it from China.

Chinese legend credits the discovery of tea in 2737 BC to which mythical emperor?

Shennong, the legendary Divine Farmer, is said to have discovered tea in 2737 BC when leaves blew into his pot of boiling water.

The Classic of Tea, an eighth-century treatise on tea and its preparation, was written by whom?

Lu Yu wrote The Classic of Tea (Cha Jing) around 760 AD, describing how tea plants were grown, leaves processed and the drink prepared.

Which English diarist recorded drinking his first cup of tea in September 1660?

Samuel Pepys wrote on 25 September 1660 that he 'did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before'.

Which princess brought the tea-drinking habit to the English court when she married Charles II in 1662?

Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of Charles II, arrived in 1662 already fond of tea and made it fashionable at the English court.

'Tea' reached English in the 17th century via the Dutch from which variety of Chinese?

The Dutch traded at Fujian and Taiwan, where Min Chinese speakers said 'te'; English adopted that form, while 'cha' had arrived earlier via the Portuguese.

Which type of tea is wilted, bruised and only partially oxidized?

Oolong is partially oxidized, anywhere from about 8 to 85 percent; its Chinese name wulong means 'black dragon'.

Which country led global tea production in 2022 with roughly 49 percent of the world's 29.8 million tonnes?

China grows about half; India adds 20 percent, and a handful of countries including Sri Lanka account for about 81 percent of world production.

Turkish tea is traditionally served in small glasses of what shape, called ince belli or 'slim-waisted'?

Most of it is Rize tea from the Black Sea coast, brewed in a stacked two-pot caydanlik.

As of 2016, which country was the world's second-biggest per-capita consumer of tea?

The Irish average works out to between 2.7 and 4 kilograms per person a year.

Roughly what share of tea's dry weight is caffeine?

Caffeine makes up about 3% of tea's dry weight, which works out to between 30 and 90 milligrams in a 250-millilitre cup.

Which New York tea importer popularized tea bags around 1908 by shipping samples in small silk pouches?

Thomas Sullivan's silk sample pouches of 1908 popularized the idea, though Milwaukee's Roberta Lawson and Mary McLaren had patented a 'Tea Leaf Holder' in 1903.

Which brand introduced tea bags to the United Kingdom in 1953?

PG Tips answered decades later with the pyramid bag in 1997.

In 1848 the East India Company sent which Scottish botanist to China to bring tea plants back to India?

Robert Fortune travelled disguised as a Chinese merchant and shipped the plants to India in Wardian cases.

Darjeeling tea, marketed as the 'Champagne of teas', is grown in the hills of which Indian state?

West Bengal's Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts grow it, and in 2004 it became India's first product with geographical indication protection under the WTO's TRIPS agreement.

The Tea Board of India recognizes how many estates as producers of authentic Darjeeling tea?

The Tea Board recognises 87 gardens, which between them cover about 17,500 hectares at 600 to 2,000 metres above sea level.

Which is the world's largest tea-growing region by production, sitting in the Brahmaputra valley?

Assam's gardens long ran on 'Tea Garden Time', an hour ahead of Indian Standard Time, a leftover from British rule.

Which country was the world's largest exporter of black tea in 2018?

Kenya exported more black tea than any other country in 2018; tea was first planted there at Limuru in 1903, and most is sold at the Mombasa auction.

On December 16, 1773, colonists disguised as Mohawks dumped East India Company tea into which harbor?

Boston Harbor was the target; about 92,000 pounds of East India Company tea, worth around 9,659 pounds sterling, went into the water.

Which May 1773 act gave the East India Company a monopoly and set off the Massachusetts protest?

The Tea Act of 10 May 1773 let the East India Company ship tea directly to the colonies, undercutting smugglers while keeping the Townshend tea duty.

Britain countered its trade deficit with China using which narcotic, sparking an 1839 war?

Opium grown in British India was sold into China to balance the silver spent on tea; Chinese seizure of opium at Canton triggered the First Opium War in 1839.

The tea clipper Cutty Sark, built in 1869, takes its name from a character in a poem by whom?

Robert Burns's 'Tam o' Shanter' supplies the name, the witch Nannie's short shirt; launched in 1869 as the Suez Canal opened, she later hauled Australian wool.

Afternoon tea is usually credited to Anna, the seventh Duchess of which title, in the 1840s?

Anna Russell, Duchess of Bedford, wanted something to bridge the gap between a light lunch and a dinner that could come as late as eight o'clock.

The hearty working-class evening meal called 'high tea' got its name from what?

It was the hearty working-class evening meal; the dainty afternoon version was 'low tea'.

A traditional West Country tea centres on scones served with jam and what?

Clotted cream is the West Country staple; Devon spreads the cream on first and Cornwall the jam, and neither county will let it go.

Earl Grey tea is a black tea flavoured with the oil of which citrus fruit?

Bergamot oil defines it; Twinings' Lady Grey adds cornflower and Seville orange to the blend.

Thomas Twining opened Britain's first known tea room in 1706 at No. 216 on which London street?

Twinings opened at 216 Strand in 1706 and has traded from that address for over three centuries; its 1787 logo is claimed as the world's oldest in continuous use.

In which country did Glasgow grocer Thomas Lipton buy tea gardens in 1890?

Lipton bought estates in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1890 to sell tea 'direct from the tea garden to the tea pot'; the yellow pack with the red shield dates from the same year.

Matcha is a finely ground powder of green tea leaves that have been grown how before harvest?

Matcha comes from leaves grown in the shade for several weeks before harvest, which boosts chlorophyll and theanine; the powder is whisked with a bamboo chasen.

Which monk brought powdered tea from China to Japan around 1191, having encountered it in temples there?

Eisai, founder of Rinzai Zen in Japan, returned from China in 1191 with tea seeds; his disciple Myoe planted tea at Uji, near Kyoto, which became Japan's foremost tea region.

The Japanese term chanoyu, used for the tea ceremony, literally means what?

Chanoyu is written with the characters for tea and hot water joined by 'no', so it reads 'hot water for tea'; the broader term chado means 'way of tea'.

What is the deliberately small entrance door of a traditional Japanese tea house called?

The nijiriguchi, a crawl-in entrance well under a metre high, makes every guest stoop; the ideal tea room beyond it is just four and a half tatami mats.

Japanese green teas are mostly steamed; Chinese green teas are typically processed how?

Chinese greens are typically pan-fired in a hot wok to halt oxidation, giving toasty, nutty notes; steaming gives Japanese teas a sweeter, grassier flavour.

Gunpowder tea gets its name because each leaf is rolled into what?

Gunpowder tea's leaves are rolled into small pellets that resemble grains of black powder and unfurl when brewed; its Chinese name zhucha means 'pearl tea'.

Tieguanyin, the 'Iron Goddess of Mercy' oolong, comes from which Chinese province?

Tieguanyin is an oolong from Anxi County in Fujian province; the name honours Guanyin, the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

Da Hong Pao, one of the world's priciest teas, is a rock tea from which mountain range?

Da Hong Pao, 'Big Red Robe', grows on the cliffs of the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian, where only six original mother trees survive.

Bubble tea, with its chewy tapioca pearls, originated in the 1980s in which place?

Taiwan: Chun Shui Tang in Taichung and Hanlin Tea Room in Tainan both claim to have invented the drink in the 1980s.

The word 'boba', for the pearls in bubble tea, began as a nickname for an actress from where?

'Boba' was a Hong Kong nickname for actress Amy Yip, and Taiwanese vendors borrowed it for the large tapioca pearls in the late 1980s.

Kashmiri noon chai owes its pink colour to which ingredient?

Noon chai's pink hue comes from baking soda: the alkali reacts with green tea leaves as the brew is aerated, and salt rather than sugar finishes it.

Iced tea's popularity surged after Richard Blechynden served it at the 1904 World's Fair in which US city?

St. Louis got the credit for Blechynden's free samples at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, though printed iced-tea recipes go back to the 1870s.

Roughly what share of all tea consumed in the United States is iced?

About 85 percent of tea drunk in the United States is iced, typically sweetened in the South; the Arnold Palmer mixes it half-and-half with lemonade.

Tibetan po cha is tea churned with salt and butter from which animal?

Po cha is churned from strong tea, salt and yak butter; a Tibetan host refills the bowl after every sip, so a guest leaves it full when finished.

Which country took up tea after losing Yemen and led per-head tea drinking in 2016?

Turkish tea is brewed in a two-tier caydanlik and poured into 'slim-waisted' ince belli glasses.

Since the 18th century, which Russian city has been the main centre of samovar production?

Tula, south of Moscow, has made samovars since the 1770s; a small pot on top brews a strong concentrate called zavarka, diluted with hot water from the urn.

Hong Kong's 'silk stocking' milk tea gets its name from the colour of what?

Hongkongers make it with evaporated milk, and the technique was declared intangible cultural heritage in 2017.

Teh tarik, Malaysia's national drink, is made frothy by doing what?

The name means 'pulled tea', and it is a strong black tea with condensed milk served at Indian Muslim mamak stalls.

Yerba mate, drunk from a gourd through a bombilla straw, comes from a plant in which genus?

Yerba mate is Ilex paraguariensis, a species of holly; the Guarani were the first to cultivate it, and Brazil and Argentina are the main producers.

The Kangra Valley, a tea region since the mid-19th century, lies in which Indian state?

Kangra Valley, in the foothills of the Dhauladhar range in Himachal Pradesh, has grown tea since the British planted it in the mid-19th century.

What sits on the bottom tier of a traditional afternoon tea stand?

Finger sandwiches go on the bottom tier, scones in the middle and small cakes on top; the accepted order is to work up the stand.

Between which hours was afternoon tea originally eaten?

Afternoon tea was taken between four and five o'clock, bridging the gap before a fashionable dinner served at eight or later.

What is the other name for afternoon tea?

Low tea is afternoon tea, named for the low parlour tables it was taken at, not for social standing.

Which social group adopted high tea in the 1860s and 1870s?

Working people took up high tea in the 1860s and 1870s as a hearty meal after the day's labour, while afternoon tea belonged to the upper and middle classes.

What does a traditional high tea begin with?

A savoury dish comes first, typically cold cuts such as ham salad or a hot plate, with bread, butter, jam and cakes following.

Which pink-and-yellow checked cake, wrapped in marzipan, is an afternoon-tea classic?

Battenberg cake is a pink-and-yellow checked sponge wrapped in marzipan, popularly said to mark the 1884 marriage of Princess Victoria to Prince Louis of Battenberg.

How is a traditional cucumber sandwich made?

The traditional cucumber sandwich uses thinly buttered crustless white bread with paper-thin cucumber slices, and is the definitive finger sandwich of the tea table.

In which Oscar Wilde play does host Algernon eat every cucumber sandwich before Lady Bracknell arrives for tea?

The Importance of Being Earnest has Algernon claim there were no cucumbers in the market, not even for ready money, and his butler backs up the lie.

Which riddle does the Hatter ask at the tea table in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

'Why is a raven like a writing-desk?' had no answer in the original text; Carroll supplied one in an 1896 preface after readers wrote in, that it 'can produce a few notes'.

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, who joins the Hatter and Alice at the mad tea party?

The March Hare and the Dormouse share the table in chapter seven, 'A Mad Tea-Party'; the Dormouse dozes throughout and ends up being stuffed into the teapot.

What is written on the hatband in Tenniel's original illustration of the Hatter?

The label reads 'In this style 10/6', a price ticket for ten shillings and sixpence; illustrators and film-makers have kept it ever since.

Where does the phrase 'mad as a hatter' come from?

Poisoning was common in the 19th-century hat trade. The phrase predates Lewis Carroll's books entirely.

How many chests of tea went into the water at the Boston Tea Party?

They were worth £9,659 at the time, well over a million pounds today. Three ships were boarded.

Which three ships were boarded during the Boston Tea Party?

The Dartmouth and Eleanor each carried 114 chests and the Beaver 112; the raiders who boarded them wore Mohawk disguises.

How did Parliament respond to the destruction of the tea?

They ended local self-government in Massachusetts and closed the port. The measures pushed the colonies towards war.

The earliest physical evidence of tea, found in 2016, came from the tomb of an emperor of which dynasty?

The mausoleum of Emperor Jing of Han, near Xi'an, held tea leaves showing the drink was taken as early as the 2nd century BCE.

In 1391 the Hongwu Emperor decreed that only what form of tea would be accepted as tribute?

By the end of the 16th century loose-leaf tea had entirely replaced the older cake and powder traditions.

Who was the first person to sell tea in London, at his house in Exchange Alley in 1657?

Thomas Garway, a tobacconist and coffee-man, sold tea at 16 to 50 shillings a pound and in 1660 advertised it as a cure for almost every ailment.

Which style of Japanese green tea did Soen Nagatani develop in 1738?

Sencha, whose name means roughly 'simmered tea', is brewed from whole steamed leaves, unlike the powdered matcha of the tea ceremony, and makes up most of Japan's output.

In which year was the Assam Company, India's first tea company, founded?

The Assam Company was formed in London in 1839, the first commercial tea company in India, taking over most of the government's experimental gardens in Assam.